March is Reading Month!

As parents, we know that some of the best times with our children happen when they want to cuddle up with you and read a book. Since March is Reading Month, this is the perfect time to grab your child’s favorite book and jump right in! It might be a good idea to try to fit in an extra few minutes with your little ones during the day to show that reading is not just for bedtime.

According to an article from www.readaloud.org, more than half the children in the country-13 million children- will not hear a bedtime story tonight. Some children begin kindergarten having been read to as few as 25 hours, while their peers may have been read to as many as 1,000 hours. Every time you read to your child you are improving their learning advantage. By age four, low-income children have heard an average 32 million fewer words than their wealthy peers. Reading aloud is a key way to introduce new vocabulary. Even in higher-income households, nearly 40% of families do not read aloud every day. If a child is not reading at grade level by the end of the first grade, then there is an 88% probability the child will not be reading at grade level by the end of the fourth grade.

As you can see, reading to your child or with your child is very important. It helps build the bond between you and your child as well as help with further development. Reading to an infant may not seem as important as reading to a preschooler, but it is. When you read aloud to infants, you are stimulating brain development patterns as well as working to strengthen your relationship with them. You are also working to help them build early language skills.

So for the month of March (and beyond) hit the library or bookstore, get some new fun books to read to your little ones and enjoy every minute of that time together!